The rollers of a printing press are usually cleansed with solvents after each printing. The cleansing process is necessary to prevent ink, dust and other foreign materials, which could affect the quality of any subsequent printing operations, from becoming bound to the printing rollers.
A typical conventional ink removing device, as shown in U.S. Pat. No. 1,772,470 to W. J. Schneider, can be attached to a printing press roller after the printing operation is completed. A blade on the cleaning apparatus will contact the roller and provide for removal of ink and cleansing solvents prior to the subsequent printing process. This ink cleaning apparatus is typically positioned in a permanent contact orientation with the printing press roller. As a consequence, it is necessary to remove the ink cleaning apparatus after each cleansing operation.
More recent embodiments of ink removing apparatus include devices which can be permanently mounted to the printing press because their cleaning blades are adapted to pivot between a contact position with the printing press roller during a cleansing operation and a non-contact orientation during the printing operation of the printing press. Examples of such devices are shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,601,051 and 4,254,709, the disclosures of which are incorporated herein by reference. These permanently-mounted ink cleansing apparatus, however, have ink pans which remain in close proximity to the printing press rollers. As a consequence, these ink pans are either completely detached from the printing press ink cleansing apparatus so that they may be washed out, or left in close proximity to the printing press rollers during the cleaning of the pan.